Comment by Schmerika
13 hours ago
> My problem with these type of posts in HN is that the discussion doesn't offer ANYTHING constructive.
They offer a chance for awareness, which is literally step one. Americans are some of the most propagandized people on Earth, and most don't even know it.
It's crucial that the tech community develops more awareness around censorship - no small share of the responsibility is with us.
Censoring stories about censorship, on a premier tech community and investment forum, just because the discussion gets 'visceral' is simply capitulation to any entity willing to try and make a discussion toxic. We need to do a lot better than that.
I was talking to my uncle last September who is a chaplain in the US Army, and I was shocked by the disparity between what he understood was going on in the US and what I understood. That's not to say that I'm not influenced in certain ways either, but it really cemented my understanding that people in the US (and here in Canada and I'm sure other countries too) are operating within two entirely different realities.
He's not even what I would call MAGA, but it still seemed like a gulf that is impossible to bridge.
> people in the US (and here in Canada and I'm sure other countries too) are operating within two entirely different realities
They're not entirely different though. The similarities are critical to understand; the parts where both parties differ wildly from reality in the exact same way.
For example: 98.15% of 2024 voters didn't hold openly arming genocide as a red line for their vote. I don't believe you can blame the 2 party system for that, not entirely - every adult human has an extremely clear moral and legal duty not to be voting for anyone arming genocide.
Speaking to Americans about this will furnish extremely consistent and predictable responses; none of which hold the smallest amount of weight. There is no rationale for genocide, ever. There is never a good reason to enable the mass slaughter of children, the bombing of an entire healthcare system, the mass targeting of journalists and their families, the poisoning of wells, etc etc etc.
Yet no matter how predictable the responses, there's still no getting through. We all know how delusional the MAGA crowd can be - but Biden repeated lies about 40 beheaded babies long after they were debunked to virtually zero pushback. That lie, and the one about mass rape, was used to 'justify' genocide. Millions of people still believe it. No one was ever held responsible for those lies, not so much as a slap on the wrist.
Biden vetoed 4 UN ceasefires against a genocide that had been already called out by virtually every relevant human rights org. And even after those vetoes, people like AOC - the supposed left wing of the supposed left wing party - told us he was "working tirelessly for a ceasefire". The entire political and media class chose to overlook this, and instead get worked up about, Idk, the 8 trans people competing in professional sports instead.
A party that can inspire such loyalty that it's members overlook participation in genocide can only be described as a cult. The blue cultists says the red cult are in a cult, and the red cultists say the blue cultists are in a cult.
And then there's the other third of the voting population - the faction who intensely dislike both parties, but can't be bothered to vote for a third option even against the most documented genocide in history. Absolutely astounding propaganda work.
And that's just regular people. Imagine how much worse it is for people in the military, where only Murdoch media is permitted and you can get jailed for reading things like Wikileaks. Imagine growing up in a 'privileged' elite bubble, where poverty is "necessary" and "deserved", where every billionaire "earned" their wealth, where some families with generational wealth are simply genetically "superior". Ugh.
So yes, many people live in wildly different realities - but the parts where the blue cult and the red cult have the exact same opinions, and so do even the "independents" (again, things like the 'necessity' of tolerating genocide from your leaders, or the socialist evils of feeding hungry children)... Wow. Truly, there is a vast, almost unimaginable gulf between America and the rest of the world.
... And they think they're free. They think the US is hated for its freedoms. It's fascinating, and terrifying - and the tech community has played no small part in every aspect of things getting this way, for decades.